Peter Dinklage fakes his own death on Game of Thrones to mess with people

'It’s always fun.'

game of thrones prank
(Image credit: Michael Buckner/Variety/REX/Shutterstock)

'It’s always fun.'

It seems like being on a show as dark as Game of Thrones has taken its toll on Peter Dinklage’s humour. The actor, who plays Tyrion Lannister on the show, revealed that during his downtime on set he would play pranks on the crew by faking his own death.

While promoting his upcoming film I Think We’re Alone Now, he revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he would elaborately stage his death and wait for unsuspecting crew members to find his ‘corpse’. And, well, we can only imagine the heart attack those poor people encountered when they found one of the show’s star actors KO’d on set.

He told Kimmel, ‘I like to pretend I’m dead. It’s always fun.’

There’s definitely a huge irony there, as his character Tyrion Lannister is one of the rare Thrones characters to survive the gory fantasy series so far. It's a miracle he actually made it to the final series.

game of thrones prank

©2017 Home Box Office, Inc. All
(Image credit: ©2017 Home Box Office, Inc. All)

While he’s come pretty close to kicking the bucket, he’s always managed to come out on top – even the thought of Dinklage faking his own demise makes our hands sweat. (Tyrion is the One True King, in our humble opinion.)

As for who his usual victims were? Peter explained that he was an equal opportunity prankster, telling Jimmy, ‘For whoever, the wardrobe person or the producers.’

Although Game of Thrones may have the budget for expensive death scenes (according to Variety, the upcoming eighth season apparently costs $90 million for just six episodes), Peter Dinklage went low budget for his own set up.

He said that his fake death consisted of: ‘Just my legs sprawled out in the trailer. You’ve got to get really smushed into the floor in a very awkward position…I’ll wait hours. We have a lot of time on set.’

With all those crazily choreographed battle scenes and a massive ensemble cast, we bet there’s a lot of waiting around and boredom while filming the blockbuster show. It’s no surprise that he had turn to hijinks to get his kicks, or that a lot of the cast spend time getting to know one another.

There’s a few amazing friendships that have come out of the show including Emilia Clarke and Jason Momoa’s goofy antics, as well as Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams’ matching-tattoos level of friendship.

Just, uh, fingers crossed that Peter Dinklage just likes to fake his death and that his character doesn’t actually kick the bucket.

Come on Tyrion, you’re the least problematic one - please make it to the end.

Megan C. Hills

Megan is a freelance journalist who covers entertainment and all things lifestyle, with a particular passion for fashion, beauty, travel and Keanu Reeves stories. She has previously worked on staff for titles including Marie Claire UK, CNN Style and The Evening Standard and has written for titles such as Bustle UK, Wallpaper*, Forbes and Hong Kong Tatler. She splits her time between London and her hometown Hong Kong, where she currently lives with the love of her life - an elderly dog named Poppy - and her husband.